The species was "protected" to begin with. CITES confers no protection from harvest, only from LEGAL export. In this case, CITES 1 listing prevents hundreds or thousands of CB animals from crossing international borders. A downgrade is forseeable, and such changes certainly occur. It was originally reasonably argued, that CITES 1 was unjustified because legal export of WC animals was only possible from one country, making CITES 3 all that was truly needed. The downside of that is that Oman and Ukraine would then be able to export hundreds or thousands of "CB" animals without any CITES requirements at either end. On the other hand, so too could the many breeders currently ACTUALLY producing thousands. With regard to the smuggled WC animals, the shoes would be right back on the feet of Iran to crack down on the illegal harvest [they ARE sold illegally INSIDE Iran, as well as exported], and on the laundering countries as well. Not that I think Iran has a great legal system or should be cracking down on anything at all...but that's beside the point.
Regardless, it remains to be seen what will happen. It's worth noting that the author of this study is ALSO one of those who sounded the alarm on the decline in the first place. It stands to reason that if his evidence was used to upgrade protection, it should equally be used to downgrade, as suitable.
I'm not surprised by the numbers. Long-toed salamanders here are considered "sensitive", and were previously "threatened" I believe. I have seen as many as 50 in 15 minutes during breeding, and know of ponds with estimated adult populations of 10000. I saw an estimate of 700 animals TOTAL for southern torrent salamanders, a species found from the Little Nestuca River of Oregon, into the southern Cascades, and south almost to San Francisco. There are a large number of known streams in which they occur. In one pool on one stream, I saw a half dozen or so adults or sub-adults. So what are the odds of me finding 10% of the world population in mid-summer at one tiny part of the range? Some of these estimates are insanely conservative, and I suspect the science is being bent to suit an agenda. No surprise there, but it hurts both conservation and the scientific community in the long run when some studies effectively lie to suit an end goal [/rant]. Which is not to say that I think any of this particular author's studies fall into that pattern.
Markus, if you have this paper, could you send me a copy please? If Johnny hasn't asked for it, I'm sure he will as well.
